SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL
VOLUME 24 . NUMBER 4 . DECEMBER 1970 230 PARK AVENUE路 NEW YORK, N.Y. 10017
PAUL WEBBINK AND ELBRIDGE SIBLEY
TO RETIRE ON DECEMBER 31, 1970: THE COUNCIL PAYS TRIBUTE PAUL WEBBINK joined the Council as assistant director of research for the newly appointed Committee on Social Security on January 9, 1936. As its full-time Director of Research, in Washington, from 1937 to 1943, he organized and supervised execution of a comprehensive program to meet the urgent needs for research created by the adoption of national social security programs. The committee's activities, which resulted in over 100 publications, were brought to conclusion under the impact of war, which led governmental agencies to make heavy new demands upon the committee's staff and associates. In this situation the Council established a personnel office in Washington to deal with requests for assistance in the recruitment of social scientists for wartime service. The professional, administrative, and consultative functions performed by Paul Webbink for the Council during the war years were numerous and varied. In 1943 he became staff of the new Committee on Labor Market Research, appointed upon termination of the Committee on Social Security to continue development of research planning in a broadened field. The committee's substantial record of accomplishment in the application of scientific techniques in the study of employment problems owed much to his constructive contributions to the planning and conduct of its projects, 1943-56. From 1944 to 1954 Paul Webb ink served as Secretary of the Conference Board of Associated Research Councils, set up to facilitate continuing the cooperation on matters of common concern initiated in response to wartime problems. He was a member of the Subcommittee on Demobilization Awards, Committee on Social Science Personnel, which administered an emergency pro-
gram to hasten the return of promlSlng young social scientists to normal professional work after the war. As staff of a Committee on Federal Government and Research, -1945-46, concerned with the relationship of social science to proposals for the expansion of federal support of research, he expedited preparation of a statement of the Council's position with respect to establishment of a national science foundation. Regardless of how the activities of the Council are categorized in the years immediately following World War II, Paul Webbink's knowledge and skill were drawn into every category. As staff of the Committee on Organization for Research in the Social Sciences, 1946-52, he produced the first directory of university social science research organizations in universities and colleges ever published in this country; conducted a welcomed inquiry into university practices relating to the appraisal of research contracts in the social sciences; and prepared a report on the administration of social science research at universities, published in Items, June 1948. He became a member of the Committee on Social Science Personnel in 1946, serving until 1964. From 1949 to 1954 he served on the Commission on Human Resources and Advanced Training, appointed by the Conference Board. In September 1948 Paul Webbink was named VicePresident of the Council and moved to its office in New York. The added administrative and financial responsibilities he thus assumed in no way lessened his interest in or contributions to the research planning activities of the Council. That autumn he arrange.d conferences of economists associated with the Council to see where its effort might best be directed for the advancement of 41